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Siemens: Will Sell 11 Million Mobile Phones In Current Quarter
Friday September 26, 5:55 am ET

BERLIN -(Dow Jones)- Siemens AG (NYSE:SI - News) , the world's fourth-largest mobile phone maker, is set to sell 11 million handsets in the current fiscal fourth quarter, a spokesman for the Siemens Mobile division said Friday.

That compares with 8.1 million handsets in the second quarter.

"It's going to be a record quarter for us," the spokesman said.

Germany's largest engineering and electronics company said in August that it expects to boost handset sales by as much as 20% this fiscal year after introducing new models. That growth will be faster than the market, which analysts expect to expand about 10%.

The spokesman declined to comment on a report in the Handelsblatt newspaper that Siemens is considering options for the mobile phone unit, including a possible linkup with another handset maker such as LG Electronics Inc. or NEC Corp. .

Handelsblatt said no decision has been made and that there are no concrete negotiations.

Speculation that Siemens will seek a partner in mobile phones isn't new.

The business was unprofitable in the fiscal third quarter and has hampered Siemens Mobile's attempt to boost margins toward the prescribed target of 8%-11% .

Siemens already works with a number of companies in the wireless industry, including NEC, Motorola Inc. (NYSE:MOT - News) and China's Huawei Technologies Co. .

Company Web site: http://www.siemens.com

-By Taska Manzaroli, Dow Jones Newswires; 49 30 2888 410